


No Crying Over Spilled Milk

by sagittarian (noellian)



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, currently a plotless mess, mostly fluff and learning how to communicate, neighbors to friends to something else, new kid on the block, some angst to follow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noellian/pseuds/sagittarian
Summary: Liz Evans has lived in the San Jose area for a few months, expressing little interest in anything outside of mailbox chatter with her other neighbors. When a new tenant moves into the building and is rumored to be a brilliant young doctor with something "special" about him, her interest is piqued.The way the other tenants say "special" makes her cringe. Few things come to mind that can be taken kindly.Set on learning what she can, and on being kind and neighborly to the newest transplant, she brings a plate of chocolate chip cookies down to the young man in apartment 33.





	1. Empathy: I Feel What You Feel

Fresh out of the oven, Liz Evans’ chocolate chip cookies sat on the counter to cool as she tidied the apartment in preparation for meeting her new neighbor. The chatter at the mailbox told her it was a young man; someone claimed he was a doctor, and a surgeon at that, but she didn’t know if she believed it. What concerned her was the prickly tone surrounding the rumor that he was “special,” in ways no one dared to elaborate on. 

She had an idea about that, but wouldn’t know for sure until she met him. 

While she waited for the cookies to cool, she looked through her closet to find a more suitable outfit than her flour-stained shirt and cutoffs. 

Today is Thursday, she thought, and Thursdays are purple days. She had a soft purple sweater buried in the back of her closet, and she pulled that on, along with a pair of dark jeans and her low-heeled ankle boots. Running her fingers over the sleeves, she smiled. Chenille was her favorite texture, and purple her favorite color. 

For a moment, she wondered if the young man would like the color, too.

Returning to the kitchen, she checked to see if the cookies had cooled, and placed them on a decorative plate before wrapping them in plastic wrap. Once she finished, she checked to make sure her phone and keys were in her pocket, and stepped out her front door, making sure it was locked behind her. 

Her heels clicked against the stairs as she descended to the apartment directly below hers, coming to a stop in front of his door. With a deep breath, she rapped on his door with her knuckles a few times, just below the 33, and took a half-step back to wait. 

By the time she thought to wonder if he would even be home on a Thursday afternoon, the door opened, and a young man who couldn’t be older than twenty-five greeted her with a shy glance, the door opened just wide enough to see his face. 

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Liz Evans, and I live upstairs. I wanted to bring you some cookies to welcome you to the neighborhood. I hope you like chocolate chip.”

The young man looked down at the cookies, then at a point near her shoulder, and answered, “Yes. Thank you.”

He opened the door wider and stepped back, then asked, “Would you like to come in.” It was framed as a question, but his intonation was flat, with little emotion. 

Liz nodded and smiled, saying, “I would, thank you.” She stepped past him, into an identical but poorly decorated mimicry of her own apartment, and held the cookies out for him to take. 

“It’s very… very nice to meet you,” the young man said, taking the cookies from Liz. “My name is Doctor Shaun Murphy. I’m a surgeon at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital.” 

“Nice to meet you as well, Dr. Murphy,” Liz replied. 

“Please call me Shaun,” he stated, and placed the cookies on an incredibly dusty countertop that made Liz cringe internally. 

“Only if you call me Liz,” she responded, and that earned an amused glance from him. 

“Would you like to sit,” he asked, again in that monotone voice, with a sing-song lift at the end of the sentence. 

“Yes,” she answered, and he pulled a chair out from the kitchen table for her. She thanked him, and he sat down across from her, hands laced together and resting on the tabletop. 

Silence enveloped them, and when it had lapsed into being just too long to be comfortable, he shifted in his chair and said in that sing-song tone, “So you live nearby.”

Nodding, she answered, “I live in 43, right above you.”

“We’re neighbors,” he said, his voice bright. 

“That’s right,” she said. “You mentioned you’re a doctor.”

“A surgeon,” he clarified. “I’m a surgeon at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital.” Wiggling in his chair, he looked in Liz’s general direction, but couldn’t make eye contact with her. 

Her voice soft, she told him, “If I’m making you uncomfortable, I can leave.”

Shuffling again, his hands laced together and pressed to his stomach, Shaun said, “I’m not uncomfortable. I have Autism. It makes it hard for me to read social cues. And to determine what is appropriate to say in polite conversation.”

“Autism,” Liz echoed. “My sister had Autism.”

His eyes flickered to hers, then cast downward to focus on his hands. 

“She died.”

“Yes,” she answered. “A few years ago, she slipped on some ice and hit her head. She passed away a few days later. Her brain was bleeding.”

“You couldn’t save her. It hurt you to know that, didn’t it?”

Her eyes widened, tears forming, and when she looked at him, his eyes were glassy, too. “That’s exactly right. There was nothing I could do to help her. A part of me felt like it died with her.”

She flexed her fingers and sniffled, silence falling over them once more. After a few moments, she sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to dump that information on you after just meeting you.”

He tilted his head, brows knitting together, and asked, “Empathy is being able to understand what the other person is feeling?”

She blinked, and answered, “Yes, that’s right.”

He laid his hands flat on the table and leaned forward to tell her, “I can empathize with you.”

Liz crinkled her nose and looked away, her voice just above a whisper as she said, “Thank you, Shaun.”

They lapsed back into silence, and after a minute, Shaun said, “I like to pet soft things, like cats and bunnies, when I’m sad. What do you do when you’re sad?”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she answered, “I like to sit in silence and calm down, to center myself, when I’m sad.”

“Then we can sit here,” Shaun said, his voice lilting, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “You brought cookies, and I have milk. If you’re interested.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, and she smiled. “Cookies sound great right now.”

“Say no more,” he replied, and he stood up from his chair to first get a pair of cups, then the milk, and finally the cookies. He unwrapped the plate while she poured out the milk. 

“Here,” she said as she offered him a half-full cup, “a toast to new neighbors, and homemade cookies.”

“A toast,” he echoed, and they clinked their cups together, cookies in hand. 

As Shaun dunked a cookie in his milk, Liz’s phone began to vibrate, and after excusing herself, she checked the screen. “I’m sorry, Shaun,” she said, “I really need to take this. It was nice meeting you,” she added, standing.

He put his cookie down and stood to open the door for her. She stepped past him, and as she passed, he said, “Nice to meet you too. Goodbye.”

She left with a little wave, her phone pressed to her ear. Once she was down the hall, he shut the door and locked it before returning to the table.  
He sat back down to eat, and after the second cookie was reduced to crumbs, he realized aloud, “She never even touched her milk.”


	2. I'm Not Crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I honestly wanted to get another chapter out sooner than this. Also, wrote this when I was not quite dying of the flu. Art imitates life, I suppose. 
> 
> Trigger warning for suggested vomiting and blood.

Time: four in the morning. End of one of the longest nights yet in his residency. The wedding bus crash almost had nothing on the city bus that skidded on a slick road and went headfirst into a concrete wall. Learning to treat an enormous group in the emergency room was one thing, but to repeat it with children present?

Shaun just wanted to sleep. He hoped that he would have a dreamless sleep, but worried the screams of that little boy would follow him into his nightmares. 

After unlocking his door, something on the floor caught his eye: it was an envelope, labeled, “To Sean Murphy, from Liz,” in a plain black font. 

He picked it up and gripped it hard enough to wrinkle the paper, locked his door, and marched over to the elevator to head up to apartment 43. His knock on her door was a little more aggressive than he intended, but the matter couldn’t wait. 

Just seconds after, she opened the door, bundled up in a thick bathrobe the same color as the mucus she was probably expelling into a tissue, her face flushed and her nose irritated and scaly. 

The air almost whistled in her nose as she inhaled and said, “Oh, hi Shaun.”

“My name is spelled S-H-A-U-N,” he replied, “this is wrong.” He showed her the envelope, pointing to the mistake. 

She leaned in slightly, and coughed into her elbow after rolling her eyes. To him, she said, “I’m sorry, Shaun. I dictated it to my computer and didn’t check the spelling before I printed it. I can fix it and give you a new one, if you like.”

Head tilted, he paused before asking, “Dictated?”

“Yeah. Listen, Shaun, I’d invite you in, but I’ve got the flu and I don’t want to give it to you—”

“How long have you been feeling sick?” he interrupted. 

"It just started yesterday. Anyways, I’ll fix it and give it to you in the morning, if that’s okay with you.” She held her hand out to take the envelope, coughing into her other elbow once more. 

He looked at the envelope in his hand, then at Liz as she waited patiently for him to do something. Looking back at the envelope, he held it against his chest and shook his head. 

“That’s okay,” he said. “I like this one just the way it is.”

She raised her eyebrows for a moment, but then sighed and smiled. “I give in. If you like it, you can keep it. I’ll be sure to get it right the next time.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Can I open it now?”

“Uh, yeah,” she answered, then turned and grabbed some tissues from the table next to the door, blowing hard and getting a lot of congestion out, from the sound of it. She wiped her face with a clean tissue, then went to throw it away and wash her hands. Over her shoulder, she said, “Shaun, you can come in if you really want to. Just close the door with a tissue, I don’t want to pass my germs to you.”

“Thank you,” he replied, shutting the door behind him with one of the provided tissues. He placed it in the little trash can she offered him, then went to put it down, but paused and coughed into it. He watched her, wavering between doing something and nothing, and she seemed to recover, only to run for the bathroom. 

He turned on his heel and called, “I’m going to go get something from my apartment. You need to be looked at.”

“I’m fi—huughh—fine, Shaun,” she answered, and got sick again. He went to her, and found her kneeling over the toilet seat, obscuring the bowl with her body. 

“Liz,” he said, laying a hand on her upper back. 

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but he pulled on her shoulder and got her to move back, exposing the contents of the toilet bowl. 

His eyes widened, and he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and went to call Dr. Glassman, but stopped. He called Claire instead; she would probably still be awake, at least for a little while. 

“Shaun, what are you—oh God,” she exclaimed. She leaned back over the bowl, and he rubbed her back until she was finished, handing her a tissue to wipe her mouth. 

“I’m calling Claire,” he said, “so we can take you to the hospital. There should not be blood in your—oh, Claire.” He cut himself off as she finally picked up. 

There was a weariness in her voice as she answered, “Shaun, it’s almost four-thirty. You and I should both be asleep right now.”

“Claire, I need your help. My neighbor is very sick, and there is blood in her vomit. She says she has the flu but I’m worried there’s something more going on.”

He was met with several seconds of silence, and then Claire asked, “What color is the blood?”

He peered back into the bowl; she hadn’t flushed it yet. To Claire, he said, “Bright red. There is only a little bit.”

“Has she been blowing her nose very hard?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And a lot. Her nose was very scaly and starting to peel.”

From the floor, Liz retorted, “Hey, who are you calling scaly?”

He patted her shoulder as Claire said, “It might be from her nasal cavity being raw, Shaun. If you have it, use a penlight to check inside her nose.”

“Okay,” he answered, “I’m going to give Liz the phone while I check. Please hold.”

He helped Liz to stand, sitting her on the side of the tub, and pulled a penlight from his breast pocket. Gently, he tilted her chin up, and she held the phone to her ear while he tried looking in her nose. 

“H-hi,” Liz said. “I’m Liz Evans. I live above Shaun.”

“Hello, Liz. My name is Claire Browne. I work with Shaun at St. Bonaventure’s. I’m a surgical resident as well.”

“You have a kind voice,” Liz said. 

Shaun grabbed a handful of toilet paper off her roll and pressed it to her face, just as her nose began to bleed. 

“Oh, damn,” Liz muttered, “guess I need to be gentler with my nose.”

“Is it bleeding?” Claire asked. 

“Yeah.” She passed the phone back to Shaun and held the tissues to her nose, pinching it to stop the bleeding. 

“Claire,” he said.

“Yeah, Shaun. Listen. The blood in her vomit is probably just from the nosebleed. Make sure she’s taking in enough fluids and I’ll come by in the afternoon and look at her. But Shaun, you use your judgment too. If you think there’s really something wrong, then take her over to St. B’s. The doctors on night shift will take care of her.”

“Thank you Claire. Goodnight,” he said, and after she said goodnight, he hung up. 

“You can go home, Shaun. I’m fine,” Liz told him. “I think my nose has even stopped bleeding.”

Grabbing another handful of toilet paper, he replied, “Let’s see about that.”

She removed the tissues from her nose and let go of it, and a slow trickle of blood appeared. 

He held the tissue to her nose again, and she pinched it in place. “Alright. It’s still bleeding. But I’ve given myself nosebleeds by blowing my nose before.”

“I understand,” he said. “Give me your hand for a moment.”

Shrugging, she held her hand out for him, and he gently pinched the skin on the backside. It was a little slow to spring back into position. 

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but okay,” she said. 

“Checking for dehydration. You are a little dehydrated. We should get you some water and have you rest.”

“It’s a little hard to drink out of a cup when you’re holding tissues to your face,” she pointed out.

With a soft smile, he said, “I’ll give you a bendy straw.”

Despite everything, she laughed. 

“Okay, Shaun. Let’s go into the kitchen. I think my stomach is finally done.”

He held her elbow and helped her to her feet, flushing the toilet before leading her out. Once she was settled onto the couch, he washed his hands thoroughly with hot water and a lot of soap, and had her navigate him around the kitchen to get the cup and straw. 

“I really appreciate this,” she told him, as he sat down opposite her and gave her the drink. “I know you probably just got off your shift at the hospital, and here  
you are taking care of me.”

“What did you mean when you said you dictated to your computer?” he asked her suddenly. 

She sipped at the water, taking a moment to catch her breath before answering. “Sometimes, I have trouble typing, so I use a program on my computer to dictate what I want to say to it. It types it for me. I guess I just forgot to spell-check before printing it. Sorry, Shaun.”

“Trouble typing,” he repeated. Changing gears, he then asked, “Did I wake you? When I knocked?”

She shook her head. “No, I was already awake. I have insomnia, on top of being sick with the flu right now. It was hard to sleep with all the drainage.”

“Gross,” he laughed, and she laughed too.

“Yeah, it was pretty gross. But better for me to get it out of my system than keep it in and make me worse.”

“Yeah,” he said, and then lapsed into silence. 

She took the tissues away from her nose and found the blood had stopped, so she threw them in the little trash can by the couch. Leaning back, she sipped from the straw. 

“Make sure you sit up when you drink,” Shaun reminded her gently. 

“I know,” she responded, shifting. “It’s just hard for me to get comfortable with the body aches.”

He tilted his head in thought, and after a minute, got up and went wandering off. She turned her neck as best she could to follow him, but she didn’t see where he went.

Putting her cup down on the coffee table, she called, “Shaun? Where did you go?”

He didn’t answer, so she shrugged and grabbed the television remote to see what terrible infomercials were on at four in the morning. 

Halfway through learning what the “Grobar8000” was, Shaun reappeared with two of her bedroom pillows in one arm, and a thick fluffy blanket and painkillers in the other. He held the bottle of medicine out for her to take, and sat the blanket on her lap while he brought her legs up onto the couch and turned her, putting one pillow behind her back and the other under her knees. Once he was done, he draped the blanket over her legs, tucking it gently around her feet to keep it in place.

“Thank you, Shaun,” she said, and he shook out two pills for her to take. 

“You’re welcome,” he said, and grabbed a chair from the kitchen to sit next to her, on the feet side of the couch. 

At the sight of the TV, he smiled, and rocked back and forth in his seat for a second before settling in, hands folded over his stomach. 

She watched him, his gaze fixated on infomercials of all things, and after several minutes of her casual observation, he turned and gave her a shy glance, asking, “What?”

“I’ve never seen someone so happy to watch bad infomercials in the middle of the night,” she answered. 

He looked from the TV to her, and then told her, “I don’t have a TV yet. But I want one.”

Sniffling, she rubbed at her eyes. “You can come watch mine until you get one, if you want.”

“I’d like that,” he said, still looking at the TV. She sniffled again, a little harder, and that prompted him to look at her and remind her not to blow her nose too hard and give herself a nosebleed. But when he looked at her, he noticed she was rubbing at her eyes again. So he asked her, “Is something wrong with your eyes?”

She took her hand away from her face, and looked at him; her eyes were glassy. “No, Shaun,” she explained. “They’re just watering.”

“Oh,” he said, and turned back to the TV. 

She thought it was the end of it, until he said a few minutes later, “It looked like you were crying.”

“No, Shaun,” she sighed. “For once, no.”

He chose not to ask her about that. He thought he might’ve asked her enough probing questions already. At least, he felt Dr. Glassman would’ve said that to him, had he known what Shaun was doing at five in the morning after an extremely late shift.


End file.
